19950730 Brigada Today

News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
Compiled by DLucas@TeamExpansion.org
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]

In this issue….

AT “PRESSTIME”

As of August 3, there were 676 participants in Brigada’s top level network (which sent this Brigada Today)! That’s an increase of over 75 users in one week’s time! The reason? More than anything else, probably thanks to the recent Mission Frontiers article. (Thanks MF!) To get a list of Brigada’s whole family of dozens of conferences, send a message to hub@xc.org with only the following word in the text of the message:
conferences

Each conference is a separate family, to be joined individually, if you want to exchange mail with that conference.

BRIGADA-PEOPLES OFF AND RUNNING

Thanks to Dave Dougherty for his willingness to head up the moderatorship for Brigada-Peoples. He’s given the conference the right mission, the right agenda, and the right start-up. A sample:

> Brigada-peoples is beginning a discussion of the whole idea of
> adopt-a-people. What can be done to advance this movement linking
> congregations and mission agencies to reach unreached people groups?
> Several churches and agencies are already starting to discuss this key
> program, and your input is important.

We’re hoping that Brigada-Peoples can be a kind of “foyer” for finding out which people groups have been “claimed” and by whom. This doesn’t intend to imply that there will be an attempt to forge a one-to-one match-up. Quite the contrary… more than one church, agency, and/or network will be needed to truly plant an indigenous church multiplication movement, in most cases. But the Brigada-peoples conference will help you find the existing “adopters” for your selected group… and if you haven’t yet identified a group to adopt, Brigada-Peoples will be a source for finding information about which groups are available.

To join the discussion, send an e-mail message to xc.hub with this line as the body of the message:
subscribe brigada-peoples

PROGRESS AMONG UZBEKS!

Protestant churches are sprouting in Islamic Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. A church planted in Uzbekistan four years ago has grown to 3,000 members and has planted 55 other congregations — 22 of them in neighboring republics. “My father received Jesus and I wanted to kill him,” said a former Muslim who now assists his father in pastoring 250 people at three churches in Tajikistan.

Thanks to John Hanna, of Caleb Project in Littleton, CO, for highlighting this “Global Glimpse”. His source was Page 1, July 24, 1995, National & International Religion Report, Roanoke, VA.

HOW ONE VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL DID IT

My family and I have just returned from a week with our major supporting church in NE Ohio, the Andover Ch. of Chr. [This is Doug talking.] For Andover’s nightly VBS, we used:

Monday: The 10/40 Window for Kids video (from Joey and Fawn Parish, 6673 Sora Street, Ventura, California, 93003; Tel. (805) 650-3511)
Tuesday: Prayer-walking for Kids video (also from the Parishes)
Wednesday: Light the Window (from CIN, 11025 State Highway 83, Colorado Springs, CO 80921)
Thursday: The Ten Four-O, a music video by Bill Drake, from OM
Friday: The Challenge of Our Unfinished Task (from Procla-Media, P.O. Box 26479, Colorado Springs, CO 80936

In addition, each night, we displayed a big 5′ by 5′ map of the 10/40 Window , explaining practical ways kids and adults alike could get involved in making a difference there. We brought volunteers to the microphone to pray for people and countries in the Window, so others could hear examples of prayer… and we highlighted missionaries who were already at work there, changing the future. By the end of the week, the VBS Director told me that her son had said that the missions segment was his favorite part of the entire VBS! We found an overwhelming interest in what God is doing in the 10/40 Window part of the world… and we’re excited about the possibilities at Andover. One woman said, “If we can’t participate in the 100 Gateway Cities prayer campaign, what kind of church are we?” Leaders of four churches in the area are discussing how they can get together as a network to take responsibility for planting a church in one of the 100 Gateway cities. God is at work! They want to do it in concert with the Envision ’96 PACE project, where Christian churches and churches of Christ are being invited to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other to “adopt” key cities and peoples in the “least reached world.”

Either way, one thing is for sure. Those kids’ eyes were riveted to the needs of the 10/40 Window. God is at work!

PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE REQUESTED

John Robb (Unreached Peoples specialist with World Vision and Coordinator of the Unreached Peoples Track with AD2000 & Beyond) wrote this past week, “Dear Friends, Please pray and get others to pray for this situation. We need to see God’s solution.” Quoting an internal World Vision memo by Dean Hirsch, World Vision International Chief Operating Officer, John shared the plight of Bosnian Serbs.

“Morality seems to have gotten lost in Bosnia over the past three years. There’s nothing moral about expelling neighbors from their homes, then blowing up their houses so they won’t come back, just because the family is Serb, or Croat, or Muslim. There’s nothing moral about kidnapping young women and keeping them as sex slaves. There’s nothing moral about making entire villages homeless. There’s nothing moral about 200,000 deaths. And there’s nothing moral about ripping boys as young as 7 away from their mothers to join the other “men” for investigation of war crimes, as we’ve seen in Srebrenica.” … While we’re limited in what we can do to bring about a political settlement, we can call for justice for the oppressed; we can and must call for the protection of civilians.”

Would you take a silent moment this morning to remember this critical need, lifting it in prayer to the Lord of hosts and asking Him to bring some kind of lasting resolution to this moral crisis?

BRIGADA OPENS PARTNERSHIP WITH “ADVANCE”

Thanks to Mark Kelly (Compuserve 70420,1057) for the work he does on “Advance”, a monthly email and print magazine to highlight the need to pray for unreached peoples and persecuted believers. Folks, this is good stuff. Each issue works hard to feature resources for making a difference among 10/40 Window peoples. Now, in the past few days, Brigada and Advance have formed a kind of partnership, since their agendas are so similar. Advance will be available directly in the Brigada file storage area and highlights will be featured in Brigada Today . To retrieve the full August edition of Advance, send email to hub@xc.org with only the following words in the body of the message:
get brigada advance.9508

The August issue contains the following main articles and items: THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY PEOPLE —

Summary re: status of Bible translation — at least one book in 2092 out of 6000 languages
DAWN India report — 200,000 churches already established on the way to 491,000!)… “One pastor reported his congregation grew from seven in 1973 to 7,400 today and has started 75 missions. He envisions 1,000 congregations in five years….”
Jesus Film update — “To date, more than 701 million people in 220 countries have seen the Jesus film…”
Baptist World Congress calls for targeting the world with “no access”
Tons more on persecuted believers
Close-up on Fulani
Close-up on Jakarta
Close-up on World A — China
The Cities!
Networking “close-ups” — World Prayer Center, resources, etc.
FRONT LINES — Editorial on “Our timid prayers”

Mark hopes all users will put him on their mission publication’s mailing list (Mark Kelly, 70420,1057 — or snail-mail to 8992 Midway Rd., Richmond, VA 23229)

Believe me, in this one move, Brigada has become infinitely more useful — just through association with what Mark is doing!

ETHNOLOGUE ON LINE

Have you checked out the Ethnologue online??? (Information regarding the languages of the world and where they are spoken) Try it out at…
http://www-ala.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rap/Ethnologue/eth.html
Also, check out the SIL homepage at
http://sil.org
Thanks to Matt Benjamin, who works with Ron Rowland in computer support at SIL, for this info. He’s just started a new project for SIL’s Strategic Information Office and he’d like your help. His task is a simple one: “to research missions-related materials on the Internet, … looking for and cataloging information in the following categories: countries, cities,regions (ie-Tibet, African studies, etc.), peoples, ethnic studies, world religions, demographics/population studies, anthropology,languages/linguistics,national governments, and topics related to any of these, … country WWW server lists/click maps.” So Matt, what are you going to do with all your spare time? If you can help Matt collect these resources (and no doubt put them on line somewhere so we can all see them, right Matt???), write him at matt.benjamin@sil.org

ATTENTION THOSE WHO WARM UP TO AFGHANS

Thanks to Justin Long for bringing to our attention this worldwide web page on Afghanistan:
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~endevour

JOHNSTONE WORKING ON “AFFINITY BLOCKS”

Patrick Johnstone (author of Operation World and Chairman of the AD2000 & Beyond Unreached Peoples Track) has a new project — affinity blocks. These aren’t a replacement for legos. Nor are they intended to replace the list of 1500-2500 groups being finalized for the AD2000 & Beyond emphasis on planting churches among the “final frontiers.” Instead, Johnstone simply wants us to be able to simplify the landscape. Watch for more details on this concept in the future… and look for it to help us see connections between our work and workers! Thanks Patrick!

KOREAN CHURCH FINISHED GCOWE WITH POSITIVE BALANCE

Ready for some news about an organization that finished something “in the black”???! Here it is . GCOWE. Thanks to some good planning and the power of His Spirit, the Korean church ended up debt-free on AD2000 & Beyond’s Seoul extravaganza! Bravo Luis, and all those working with you … and bravo Seoul coordinators! !! Even more importantly, working together ended up in the black! Take, for example, the SM2000 student missions conference, where tens of thousand Korean students pledged themselves to be available for worldwide mission outreaches. According to a recent letter from Luis Bush, AD2000 & Beyond International Director, leaders concluded, “For so many groups to cooperate was also a big first! … Yes, together we can obey the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, together we can achieve the task of world evangelization–Yes, together we can.” Furthermore, Korean church leaders in the USA have covenanted together to officially adopt 300 of the integrated AD 2000 target list at their AD2000 focused conference in Wheaton next year, and Korean mission leaders (at Torch Center) hope to adopt 100 of the list. Korean leaders have also made the commitment to “convene the denominational leaders here in Korea to adopt each of the remaining peoples on the list.” What an initiative!!! Now comes the problem of tying together a ready-to-work Korean congregation with your mission or network! Enter Brigada! Start a Brigada conference on the 10/40 Window people group you’re targeting and … presto-change-oh . . . you’ll have a Korean partner checking in… I bet. :-)

Luis Bush’s conclusion regarding everything God has done in Korea??? “Praise the Lord!” He ended his letter, “The End.” But it looks to me like he should have probably entitled it, “Another beginning!”

AD2000 & BEYOND’S LIST OF “LEAST REACHED” PEOPLES COMING INTO FOCUS

According to mail passing by our Brigada news desk, AD2000 & Beyond leaders are hoping to finalize the criteria for inclusion into a finalized list of “least reached” peoples by August 12 … just 6 days away! Pray for John Robb, Coordinator of the Unreached Peoples Track, who will need to shoulder ultimate responsibility for this burdensome task. Once criteria is finalized, Ron Rowland (of SIL/Wycliffe) and others will assemble the list that will serve as a key guide (and a measuring stick for AD2000 & Beyond) for national, regional, denominational, congregational and agency church- planting initiatives for at least the next 18 months or so.

ONE BRIGADA READER’S PRAYER

[The following overheard on a Brigada conference:] “How I thank God for His many answers to prayer, including GCOWE, Brigada, the prayer movement, your moderating this conference, David , and all that God is doing through His people for worldwide evangelization

I am so grateful for the movement to reach every people group, and am so excited about the goal to reach every person with the gospel by the year 2000! It cost Jesus such an incredibly high price to give us salvation, that I long and pray that as many as possible will be saved (I Tim 2:1-4) according to God’s will, and that all of us Christians will love Him fervently with all our hearts and please Him in every way. Our God is the greatest treasure imaginable, and we want as many as possible to have the joy and privilege of being His own and serving Him!

I grew up in Mexico, as my parents were missionaries there, and am very interested in knowing if anyone has Adopt-A-People information available in Spanish. I would like to try to get as many Spanish-speaking churches interested in adopting a people as possible (as well as English-Speaking churches).

Thank you very much for your help. I am trying to pray for Brigada, and as many of the other evangelization projects as I can daily, and hope and pray that many other Christians are praying for these things daily too.

In His Service,
Linda Knapp”

[Ed. Note: Linda is finding her answers on Brigada-peoples. To subscribe there, send email to hub@xc.org with only the following line in the body of the text:
subscribe brigada-peoples

BRIGADA WORLDWIDE WEB PAGE BOASTS NEW ICON

Thanks to Michael Schrank, an AIMS artist who gave volunteer time to create a new logo/graphic for Brigada’s homepage on the worldwide web. Visit it at:
http://www.xc.org/Brigada/brigada.html
Michael was very unselfish giving up his “big bucks computer time” at AIMS. Michael’s age? 13.

NEED THOSE BIBLE TERMS IN RUSSIAN?

See the ENGLISH – RUSSIAN DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL TERMS published by Nikolai Poliakov. “It is a $7.50 paperback, 168 pages long. Besides a concise alphabetical listing of Biblical terms it includes:

Differences in verse numbering of English and Russian Bibles (there are many)
Basic Phrases for the traveler
Christian witnessing phrases
Lists of Feasts, names, places, teachings from the Bible, all in both languages.

To order send your check to Nickolai Poliakov, P.O. Box 4213 Salem, OR 97302. The $7.50 includes shipping to U.S. destinations. [Thanks to David Hallowell DAVIDORREN@aol.com for this note!]